Tag Archives: emergency room

Those of you who follow The Teal Diaries are aware that I write prose, however I’ve also been inspired during my cancer treatments to pen a small collection of poetry. Here I’ve chosen to share two of my short poems in honour of National Poetry Month. My compositions Patient’s Lab Results and A Visit to the Emergency Room both explore the life altering power of a cancer diagnosis.

Patient’s Lab Results

The sun is preparing to set on a late autumn afternoon,
its rays hold me together as I fall asleep dreaming of
my immaculate incision. Scarcely a week since my surgery.
I almost laugh to think I was such a novice.
Such a common virgin.

I pass through sliding doors to a point of no return.
Then I enter a vacant waiting room,
a place that is sinister, foreboding.
How many women have waited in these chairs?
How many innocent lives transformed?

A Visit to the Emergency Room

Riding unending waves of pain and nausea,
I take a secret pride in my endurance.
The sign over the door says MINOR EMERGENCIES.
Should I draw attention to this irony?

The young nurses seem aloof, peering out from
behind their curtain. I sense that we are to be
endured until morning comes. Around me
are the homeless, the destitute the addicted.

The fluorescent lights have been turned low,
casting a pale greenish tinge across the room.
Beeping monitors and moaning
patients provide the soundtrack.

I wonder if these souls feel entirely unaided,
abandoned, alone amid the chaos.
Each of us is fighting a singular
and solitary battle.

A torrent of frustration, then drowning I panic.
I want to scream that I’m a cancer patient
and my bowels are blocked.
I long for them to have evidence.
When will they be convinced?
I’m a bloated organ about to rupture.

The pre-dawn hours break like a fever
and I emerge from my delirium.
The kind eyes of the doctor and the
contrite look on the nurse’s face.